Section: New Software and Platforms

Translation Validation

Participant : Xavier Rival [correspondent] .

Abstract interpretation, Certified compilation, Static analysis, Translation validation, Verifier. The main goal of this software project is to make it possible to certify automatically the compilation of large safety critical software, by proving that the compiled code is correct with respect to the source code: When the proof succeeds, this guarantees that no compiler bug did cause incorrect code to be generated. Furthermore, this approach should allow to meet some domain specific software qualification criteria (such as those in DO-178 regulations for avionics software), since it allows proving that successive development levels are correct with respect to each other i.e., that they implement the same specification. Last, this technique also justifies the use of source level static analyses, even when an assembly level certification would be required, since it establishes separately that the source and the compiled code are equivalent.

The compilation certification process is performed automatically, thanks to a prover designed specifically. The automatic proof is done at a level of abstraction which has been defined so that the result of the proof of equivalence is strong enough for the goals mentioned above and so that the proof obligations can be solved by efficient algorithms.

The current software features both a C to Power-PC compilation certifier and an interface for an alternate source language frontend, which can be provided by an end-user.